


Quantifiable Proof

by Hours_Gone_By



Series: Principátus [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Dare, Family, Haunted Houses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-29 11:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17202788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By
Summary: Prowl was never sure what made him give in and agree, though he privately blamed the high grade. He had not had enough to be overcharged but, clearly, he’d had enough to impair his judgment. Nothing else could explain why he, his sibling, and Trailbreaker were following Hound through an isolated area, roads in poor repair, on the border of Praxus and the Cable Jungles.Prowl accepts a dare to spend a night in a haunted house.





	Quantifiable Proof

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as [Chapter 30](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15634167/chapters/37624841#workskin) of [AU Yeah August 2018](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15634167/chapters/36304140). The prompt was Haunted House.

“Of course I don’t believe in haunted houses,” Prowl said calmly. He took another sip of the high-grade he’d been plied with all afternoon. His friends and sibling were variously seated on and sprawled over the furniture. Bluestreak kept topping up Prowl’s cube, and he wasn’t quite sure how much he’d had, but he didn’t feel overcharged. “They’re completely illogical. Why would a spirit, should such a thing exist, spend eternity in the place where they died? I’d expect that to be the last place one would want to remain.”

Bluestreak groaned and slumped sideways into Hound’s lap. “I _told_ you. Prowl, logic doesn’t have anything to do with ghosts! Besides, a lot of the time, they’re supposed to be stuck because they have unresolved problems – like their murder or a lost treasure or a secret or something – or because they don’t know they’re dead.”

“How would one fail to notice they were deceased?”

“Trailbreaker, you talk to him.” Bluestreak settled himself a little more comfortably on Hound’s legs: Hound rubbed his side affectionately, and Bluestreak visibly relaxed. “You know more about this stuff than I do.”

“Supposedly the shock of dying locks them in the moment,” Trailbreaker explained. He didn’t react when Bluestreak stretched his legs out over Trailbreaker’s. “They relive it over and over again, like an algorithm stuck in a loop. I’ll admit that doesn’t explain intelligent hauntings, where the ghosts seem to respond to and interact with people.”

“Mhm. Have you ever seen a ghost,” Prowl wanted to know, “or interacted with one?”

“Well, no…”

“Ugh, Prowl!” Bluestreak complained. “You’re taking all the fun out!”

“Solving things _is_ fun for me,” Prowl pointed out.

“So, if we got you proof, you’d believe in ghosts?” Hound asked, amused. “Or spirits, or demons?”

“If quantifiable proof of the supernatural exists, of course. However, I have not yet seen such proof.”

“Have you looked?” Trailbreaker asked.

“He hasn’t,” Bluestreak said confidently.

“I haven’t seen any need to acquire proof for myself, so no, I have not.”

“Want to start?” Trailbreaker asked, intrigued.

Prowl suppressed a sigh. “Why would I want to start? And where?”

“There’s a haunted house on one of the trails just outside of town,” Hound offered. “It’s abandoned, and kind of hard to get to – not many people even know about it anymore. Mecha used to try and spend the night, but it’s said no one ever got through a whole one. They got too scared to stay.”

“But you’ve been there?” Bluestreak asked. “How hard is it to get to? Can you take us? Can you take Prowl?”

“Why would I go there?” Prowl asked.

“To see if it really is haunted,” Bluestreak explained. Even lying sideways, he managed to bounce a little. “I dare you to spend the night.”

“Come on, Prowl. Wouldn’t the best proof be the kind you get yourself?” Hound asked, enabling the others.

“I would only be proving what I already know.”

“Aw, come on!” Bluestreak wheedled. “Don’t you want to be sure? It’d just be one night. It’s still light, we could go now.”

“It can’t hurt,” Hound added, “and it’d make Bluestreak happy.” Hound was petting Bluestreak’s side while Bluestreak’s optics dimmed happily.

“You’ll always be able to say you spent the night in a haunted house,” Trailbreaker chimed in. “The whole night, if you’re right about this.”

“Come on, Prowl!” Bluestreak encouraged. “Live a little! Consider it practice for stakeouts.”

Prowl was never sure what made him give in and agree, though he privately blamed the high grade. He had not had enough to be overcharged but, clearly, he’d had enough to impair his judgment. Nothing else could explain why he, his sibling, and Trailbreaker were following Hound through an isolated area, roads in poor repair, on the border of Praxus and the Cable Jungles. The area was industrial and largely abandoned, the occasional lights of an operating cargo terminal glowing sullenly in the twilight. Hound took them off-road, under twisting ropes of cable-vines, which soon grew thick enough to block out most of the remaining light. Prowl disliked it: Bluestreak crept close to his older sibling’s rear bumper, as if for comfort.

‘ _We’re going to stop in about three kliks,_ ’ Hound cautioned them over the radio. ‘ _We can’t drive all the way, we’ll have to hike for a bit.’_

‘ _But you know a safe path, right?’_ Bluestreak asked nervously. ‘ _These vines – I don’t like them._ ’

‘ _They’re safe as long as they’re fed,_ ’ Hound reassured him. ‘ _There isn’t an energon drought here, and its night so we’re fine. Nothing to worry about._ ’

‘ _We’ll protect you, Bluestreak,_ ’ Trailbreaker added. ‘ _From vines_ or _ghosts._ ’

‘ _Thanks…I think._ ’

When they finally arrived at the abandoned house, Prowl had to admit it did look like something that would be haunted. It was large and run down, window covers and doors hanging off their tracks, streaks of rust running from the corners of the windows. It was strangely free of vines and undergrowth, sitting in a circle of rough, dull, metal, though vines did form a tangled canopy arching overhead.

Perhaps there had been a chemical spill of some form in the past. It would explain why the home was abandoned.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Bluestreak said, uncertainly. “This place…do you feel it?”

“Yes,” Trailbreaker said. “This place is…strange.”

“It does look like something out of a horror movie,” Prowl admitted. “But that’s all. Your imaginations do the rest. Hound, do you know a way in?”

“I haven’t been in myself, but I guess you can go in through the front door.”

Prowl nodded decisively. “Alright. And you want me to stay in until dawn, correct?”

“If you can,” Trailbreaker intoned and chuckled at his own joke.

“Then I will see you in 23 cycles,” Prowl said calmly. “If you feel the need to leave before then, please feel free. I’m sure I can find my way back.”

“I’ll stay,” Hound said immediately. “It might not be safe in there, and I know basic medical care if you need it.”

That did make sense. “Very well,” Prowl agreed. “I will check in with you every cycle, then, to make sure you know I’m undamaged.” He glanced over at his sibling: Bluestreak was sometimes sensitive to the cold, and it still got quite cold at night this time of year. “Perhaps you should at least shelter in one of the front rooms?”

“Nah,” Trailbreaker said cheerfully. “Hound’s got a portable shelter. It’s meant for two, but it’ll hold three if they don’t mind being cozy.”

“Then I will see you in the morning.” Prowl saw the looks on his sibling’s face and quickly transmitted reassurance and affection to him, then crossed the barren circle to enter the house.

* * *

The inside of the house was as run-down as the outside. It looked as if it had been a showplace in its heyday, boasting large rooms with elaborately carved walls and high, arched ceilings. The entryway, where mecha could dry or dust off after coming in from outside, had two doorways leading off it. The one in front led directly into an enormous function room, taking up nearly the entire footprint of the first floor. A door to Prowl’s left showed a hallway, the outer wall a bank of thick crystal windows, ending in a staircase leading to the upper floors.

Prowl considered exploring the second floor first but decided against it. He would explore the house in order, he certainly had the time to fill. Besides, he had never been in an abandoned building before, and it _felt_ different from anywhere else he’d ever been. Prowl wondered if there were any clues left as to _why_ the house had been abandoned.

Entering the function room, he could see that bottles, cups, cubes, and plates of treats had been left on the long bar running down the right wall. Stained crystal windows, streaked with dirt, ran along the top half of the left and right walls. Expensive goldsilk tapestries, dingy and tattered, hung from the front and back walls. Even with the dirt, rust, and decay, even though it was dark, and Prowl had to use his night vision, he could see that it had once been elegant. Throngs of mecha would fit in here. Now, there weren’t even traces of mechanimals using the room. Prowl would have expected to see pawprints, evidence of attempts to use the tapestries for nesting material but there were no prints, and the fabric seemed tattered only by time, not claws and teeth. Prowl checked behind the long bar and found just the same layer of dust that covered the rest of the room. No evidence of nesting there, either.

Crossing the room to a door tucked discreetly in the back-left corner, Prowl felt as if he were treading somewhere he ought not to be and had to resist the urge to hurry. It was only a consequence of being in a large, empty, abandoned building he told himself. No one lived here, there was no reason to feel he was invading someone’s space.

The door led into a short hallway, with another stair heading to the upper floors at the left and leading into a kitchen at the right. Prowl explored the kitchen area briefly, noting that it too looked as if it had been abandoned mid-task. Tools and ingredients lay on the counters. The pantry still contained cubes of energon, sheets of metal, and powdered energon additives. Again, there was no sign of mechanimal activity though Prowl would have expected them to come for food once it was evident that they were in no danger from the house’s inhabitants.

The loading dock at the back was still open, making the lack of mechanimal activity, even glitch-mice, even more baffling. Prowl turned the gain on his audials all the way up, thinking perhaps there was a sonic device driving them away but if there was it was transmitting outside of his range.

Concluding that the entire first floor of the house was given over to entertainment and not finding any indication of a cellar, Prowl went to the second floor.

The sense of being _in someone’s space_ intensified on the second floor. Prowl felt almost as he did when he knew someone to be in an adjacent room: peripherally aware of another’s presence. Prowl did not like it, but he was resolved to see the night through. There was a floor above this one, and an attic still to look through. He would explore them, find somewhere to spend the remaining cycles, finish his current mystery novel, and perhaps recharge for a bit.

The second floor was clearly meant for living, not entertaining. It held a second, smaller, kitchen, two small living rooms, only one with an entertainment center, a study, and a magnificent library. Prowl tried a few of the book-pads, but they had been here long enough their small power cells had drained. They were each slotted into a charging station, but there was no power to the shelves.

The third floor held bedrooms and bathing rooms, as luxurious as the rest of the house and just as abandoned. He attributed the intensifying feeling of someone being there, of being watched, to the personal items and toiletries that remained where the owners had set them down. Prowl looked for clues – notes, journals, something – to tell him why but had no luck. He couldn’t understand why this house apparently drove mecha out of it. Yes, it was abandoned and uncomfortable, but not more than could be attributed to imagination fed by surroundings.

 _But_ , an insidious thought whispered to him, _it wasn’t abandoned and creepy when the mecha who lived here just walked out, now, was it?_

Prowl couldn’t argue with that, but that still didn’t mean the cause was supernatural. He didn’t know what it was, but he was not yet ready to attribute it to ghosts.

Prowl found the stair to the attic behind a door in the master suite. It was still partially open, knocked off the track from the inside as if someone had collided with it as they rushed down the stairs and not stopped to put it back. The feeling of being watched was most potent in this room. The sense of another presence was so very strong Prowl actually looked for someone else in the room a couple of times. His discomfort was becoming more and more difficult to discount as an effect of his environs alone.

Prowl put a hand on the attic door to push it open just a little further to let him through. The nano-klik he did, he went from _feeling_ he was being watched to _knowing_ he was being watched and the watcher was _angry_. It gave him a moment’s pause, then he told himself he was being foolish. No one could be up there. Unless they had a massive stockpile of energon and were amazingly energy efficient, they would have had to come out for fuel at some point. There was no one, he told himself, angry or not, in that attic.

Prowl set his shoulders and shoved the door open, setting foot on the first stair.

 _Rage_ pushed against Prowl, hostile and furious, as good as a voice screaming ‘you’re not wanted!’ Prowl froze, fuel pump speeding up in a flight reaction, feeling the urge to turn around and flee.

It was irrational. There was no one up there, there could not be. Prowl climbed to the second stair, and something in the attic _snarled_.

Prowl froze, analyzing the sound and the feeling. The sound was real, recorded in his short-term memory as received audio input, not a hallucination. The hostility and fury were genuine, but there was something else behind them. It reminded Prowl of an injured cyberhound he’d once helped Hound rescue. Afraid because it was hurt and in pain It too had snarled angrily, trying to keep them away. Hound had spent patient cycles coaxing it out, and once it was repaired and fed, it had gone from snarling and snapping to licking Hound’s hand and trotting happily at his heels.

Prowl was a rational mech. He knew there was no such thing as ghosts. He could attribute the discomfort of being in this house to the eerie qualities of abandonment and emptiness and time. The feeling of being in someone’s space came from the items left around the house, that of being watched to moving through what was supposed to be private spaces. But the snarl was real. Someone, or something, was up there.

Prowl did not want to go up to the attic. But if some mech or some mechanimal were somehow up there, injured, he did not want to live with knowing he’d abandoned them, either.

That didn’t mean he didn’t feel somewhat foolish when speaking to an empty staircase.

“It’s all right,” he said, keeping his tone calm and even as Hound had with the cyberhound. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m going to come upstairs, slowly.”

Prowl did as he’d said, pausing with each step he climbed and waiting for a response. He wondered if the entity in the attic felt trepidation, hearing a stranger approach. He could feel them, waiting, but they did not speak again until he reached the top landing.

The attic was much darker than the rest of the house. Prowl upped the gain on his night-vision and saw that it was a laboratory of some kind, but not like the forensic laboratories he was familiar with. It had the same long tables filled with equipment and charts, etched in metal panels, hung on the wall. They were made of a metal that didn’t oxidize because they were free of rust or verdigris – gold, perhaps – but even though he had just enough light with his night-vision to make out the deep carvings, Prowl couldn’t make sense of them. Further down the laboratory, in the depths of the attic toward the front of the house, it was clear a fight had taken place. Broken equipment was scattered across the floor, charts and some manner of curtain were torn from the walls, and a long table was overturned. In the midst of this, an actual book lay open on the floor, the writing foil of its pages crumpled and twisted as if someone had ground their foot on them. This room was only part of the attic: a door covered with intimidating metal bands and strong locks was set into the right-hand wall of the relatively narrow room Prowl now stood in.

In the furthest reaches of the room, a strip of light glowed weakly in Prowl’s night vision.

Prowl stopped and watched the light warily, feeling uneasy. There was a sense of danger here as well as anger, held at bay by his promise not to hurt, ready to be unleashed if that promise were broken. Prowl suddenly knew why someone had run from here so quickly they’d slammed into a door hard enough to take it off its tracks. Whoever was in this room, they did not want to be here, and they were powerful in a way Prowl had never encountered.

“Well, conjurer,” a low, raspy, voice spoke from the deep shadows, “found what you were looking for?”

Prowl took a cautious step forward, holding his hands out to in a gesture of peace. “I’m not a conjurer,” he said calmly, “and I didn’t come here looking for anything.”

The entity watching him chuckled darkly. “Didn’t you? I’ll believe you’re no conjurer, there’s no feeling of magic about you. But no one comes here unless they’re looking for power. Not even that for a long time now.”

“I know, I saw the dust. You’ve been alone here for a long time.” Prowl kept the calm tone. “Are you injured? Do you need fuel?”

A shifting sound, someone moving on a dusty floor. “What do you want in exchange?”

Prowl shook his head. “Nothing. I know basic first aid if you’re injured, and I have some energon with me if you’re hungry.” He was close enough now that he could make out the shape of a mech kneeling on the floor. One arm was stretched oddly behind them. Every line of their frame spoke of wariness.

“Stop.”

Prowl obeyed, just short of the open book.  He was being judged, every action weighed.

“Show me the fuel.”

“Very well.” Prowl subspaced a cube of the energon he, per his Enforcer creator’s instructions, kept in case of emergencies and displayed it to the shape in the shadows. The glowing strip fixed on it.

“What’s your name?” the mech demanded.

“My designation is Prowl,” he answered, including a directed transmission with glyphs for his home and pronouns out of habit.

“Very well, Prowl of Praxus. You can call me Jazz.” Jazz’s gaze had gone to Prowl’s face and now snapped back to the fuel. “You really don’t want anything in return? Any…favours?”

Prowl shook his head. “No. I just want to help you.”

“Say to me, ‘I swear three times I give this freely with no expectations.’”

“I swear three times I give this freely with no expectations,” Prowl repeated.

“Approach and hand it to me, then. Slowly.”

“Of course.” Prowl stepped over the book and approached. When he was close enough, he slowly knelt and held out the cube.

Jazz stared at him for a moment, searching his face, then reached out and took the cube carefully. They drank slowly, watching Prowl as best they could. Prowl stayed in position, taking in as much detail as he could. Thanks to night-vision Prowl couldn’t really make out colours, but he was pretty sure they were black and white with some light-to-medium detailing. The strip of light was an optic band. The arm Prowl had noted before was chained to a ring high up on the wall with a manacle around the wrist. It was at the angle it was because Jazz could no longer stand under their own power to get any slack on it.

Fury swamped Prowl at whoever had done this to a mech and then left them there to starve in the cold. No wonder this room was filled with such rage.

Jazz stopped drinking and followed Prowl’s gaze. “Oh,” they said softly. “Mech, you have no idea, do you?” Jazz clenched their fist and pulled as if trying to get away; glyphs flared brightly on the manacle, and Jazz flinched in pain. “Never seen a binding before?”

“Not like that.”

“Heh.” Jazz drank briefly. “Not at all. You’ve got no idea what a magical binding is, do you?”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” Prowl replied automatically, considering where a key might be and if he would be able to break the manacle or pull the ring free of the wall if he couldn’t find one.

Jazz laughed, coughed, and took another drink. The energon was disappearing rapidly. Prowl took his second cube from subspace and handed it over. There was a brief hesitation before it was taken, but he was not asked to swear three times again that it was given unconditionally.

“You really don’t know,” Jazz said, balancing the second cube on his thigh. “Well, well. Another surprise. All this time alone then so many gifts all at once. So, you’re not here for power.”

“I’m not,” Prowl confirmed. He was confused by the turn the conversation had taken, but he had definitely not come here for any kind of power.

“Or a magical servant.”

“What are – no, of course not. I don’t want a servant of any kind.”

“Mm.” Jazz was almost finished with the first cube. “I believe you. You have no magic, and you feel honest. But why _are_ you here if not for power or a servant?”

Now that he was here, had explored the house, and had someone outside of his siblings and friends to talk to his reason sounded very foolish. Prowl didn’t want to lie and break this mech’s trust. He had a feeling that would go very badly for him indeed. The mech had felt dangerous when they were weak from hunger and Prowl was across the room, how much more could he be refuelled and with Prowl next to him? Prowl didn’t have any reason to prevaricate other than his own embarrassment and continuing to build trust was much more important right now.

Prowl sighed. “The house is supposed to be haunted. My siblings and friends dared me to spend the night in it.”

Jazz stared at him in disbelief for a long moment then threw back their head and laughed heartily, coughed, drank, and laughed some more. “That – that is –you really _didn’t know_. No one would make that up as a reason, it’s gotta be the truth. So, Prowl of Praxus, you’re not a conjurer, not here for power or a servant – do you even know _what I am_?”

Jazz looked directly into Prowl’s optics, all the power Prowl had sensed before coming to bear on him once again. The obvious answer, a mech trapped and in need of assistance, died even as the words queued for his vocalizer.

“No,” Prowl answered in a whisper. “But you’re not a mech.”

That deep regard scaled back to something bearable. “Nope. I was summoned here and bound to this form by a conjurer who wanted a powerful servant. That’s what I thought you were after ‘cause I put a lot of energy into making sure no one’d want to come here.” Jazz yanked at the chain again. “Intimidating anyone who wanted a servant into staying away was the best I could do. Kept away all but the most determined mages for a long time. I thought they’d start coming back once I got weaker, but it never happened that way.”

“And all that time you were starving,” Prowl murmured, horrified. He shifted to look at the manacle. “There’s got to be some way to get you out of this.”

“If you could damage one of the glyphs, it’d break the binding, then I could do the rest,” Jazz offered. “It wouldn’t be hard – the manacle’s lead, soft enough, but with the glyphs on it might as well be mithril so far as I’m concerned.”

“I’ll go look for something.”

“I’ll try not to get bored and wander off,” Jazz said, one half of their optic band flickering in a wink.

Prowl searched the laboratory until he found a hammer and chisel. Primitive, but they would do. He didn’t like that Jazz had to stay kneeling at his feet while he damaged the glyphs but at least it wouldn’t be for long. Prowl carefully settled the blade of the chisel diagonally across a complex glyph, where he hoped it would do the most damage, and struck once, hard, with the hammer.

Cracks splintered across the surface of the manacle the instant the glyph was broken. Jazz gave one tug, and the manacle shattered, chain swinging free to clatter against the wall. Jazz gasped in pain and curled into themselves, trying to draw the stiff arm in close. Prowl knelt quickly, setting the tools down, and gently braced the arm, damaged from years of relative immobility. Jazz’s plating was cold; they had only recently refuelled, and their repair systems were no doubt prioritizing internal repairs over bringing the temperature in their extremities up. Even so, there was an energy there unlike anything Prowl had experienced before.

“Easy, Jazz” Prowl said gently. “Your joints are frozen. It will take some time before you can move your arm easily.”

“Don’t have time,” Jazz gritted out. Whatever their original form, when they were in this one they were apparently affected as any other mech would have been. “You never asked _why_ the mage wanted a servant.” Slowly, awkwardly, they got their arm around Prowl’s shoulders and pushed themselves painfully to their feet.

“Based on what you’d said I’d concluded for power. That’s not the case?”

“No. Not just for power.” Jazz raised their head and looked at the locked door Prowl had noted earlier. “Thing is, I’m not the only one he summoned.”

“The other one isn’t like you,” Prowl guessed, taking as much of Jazz’s weight on himself as he could.

Jazz shook their head. “Not anymore. You’d call ‘em a demon now.” They took a slow step forward, then another. Something – something large – slammed into the locked door. “He bound me to further bind _them_.” Another slam and Prowl swore he could see the door flex. “You know how everything’s dead outside, how even mechanimals don’t come here?”

Prowl did but had no idea how Jazz had known that if they’d been chained in an attic for solar-cycles uncounted. Then again, there was apparently a lot Prowl had had no idea about. “Yes?”

“That started out as a ward. Got corrupted thanks to a bad summoning slowly driving the other guy over the edge. That’s why nothing grows around the house now, why nothing and no one – almost no one – comes here.”

“Did you have a-a bad summoning as well?” Prowl asked cautiously, helping Jazz shuffle across the floor.

“Nah, mine he got right, but the damage had already been done.” Jazz leaned a little more heavily on Prowl when one leg buckled. “The other’d already been corrupted. Instead of keeping away unwanted visitors and protecting against other mages and such they started driving everyone away, keeping everything out.”

“The ward turned into a barricade,” Prowl murmured. “The mecha who lived here – it wasn’t just your anger that drove them out.”

“Barricade’s a good name for them, now, and yeah.” Jazz’s voice turned hard. “Can you blame me?”

“No,” Prowl answered firmly. “He had no right to call you and chain you and _leave_ you, mech or not. Either of you.” The pounding on the door was faster, more furious, now and Prowl knew it was only a matter of time before Barricade was released. “Can the other be sent back?”

“Yeah, but you’re not gonna like it. I can do it but weak as I am I need tools just like a mortal.” Jazz nodded at the rapidly failing door. “Guess where those are.”

They would have to let Barricade out first. Prowl felt his fuel run cold.

“My siblings and my friends are outside! Barricade – can they get out of the house, the circle, if they’re free?” And Jazz…Jazz was in no shape to get to what they needed on their own. Prowl wanted to comm his siblings and tell them to get away, but they hadn’t been in the house, hadn’t sensed what he’d sensed, didn’t know what he knew. They might come in instead and they’d be in danger for sure but staying put them in jeopardy as well. Prowl was paralyzed by indecision and didn’t realize Jazz had swung around to face him until they grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“Prowl! Prowl. Prowl, look at me. Look.”

Prowl snapped out of it and looked into Jazz’s optic band, deep and ancient and unworldly. Jazz was weakened, furious over their long captivity, but willing to help, to protect, despite all that. Prowl calmed.

“Why did you help me?” Jazz asked. “I did my best to drive you away, but you kept coming. Why?”

Prowl stared at him, not understanding why this was important right now. “You were afraid, I thought you might be injured. You needed help. I couldn’t just leave you.”

“And why was your first thought for your friends and sibling, even though you’re the one standing right in front of an enraged demon?”

“Because they’re – because I love them.”

Jazz smiled, a hint of the beauty and strangeness of whatever their original form was coming through. “Exactly. So, here’s what’s going to happen: Barricade’s going to come through, can’t stop that now. I’m gonna get in there and do what I need to do. You’re gonna hold Barricade back.”

Prowl shook his head. “How do I – I can’t. I don’t have weapons, they’ve got to be stronger than I am – “

“You can, and you will,” Jazz commanded. “You do it ‘cause it’s right, you focus on how much you love your friends and your family, you can do it.”

“You called Barricade a demon,” Prowl whispered, fear growing despite himself with every blow on the door. He couldn’t help it; it was a primal, almost mechanimalistic, fear rising from deep inside, the knowledge that some _thing_ big and deadly was not far and coming for him fast.

“Angel and demon, love and hate, good and evil, two sides of the same coin. I know you can do this, Prowl of Praxus.” Jazz pulled Prowl down and kissed him gently just above and between his optics, saying, “be not afraid.”

After it was all over, Prowl was never sure if Jazz had done something to help him in some way, but when the door came down, he thought only of his sibling, friends, creators. Everyone he loved and who would be in danger if this demon, a roaring mass of fury, spikes, and claws got past Prowl and got free. He thought of them, held the knowledge of loving and being loved within himself like a shield, and threw himself into the demon’s path.

Barricade grappled with him, pushing and snarling. Prowl pushed back, thinking of hanging out with Bluestreak, Hound, and Trailbreaker just to be together. Barricade tried to bring him to the ground and Prowl countered as he’d been taught, remembering Creator’s pride when Prowl had managed that move on only the second try. Claws digging into his armour and Bluestreak’s innocent, chattering, curiosity over _everything_ as a juvenile. Staggering under a blow to the shoulder, dodging the second one, focused on how it felt to go racing with Sator on a bright, crisp, sunny afternoon. Managing, somehow, to pin the demon and Hound and Trailbreaker going out of their way to befriend shy, quiet, awkward Prowl when he’d been the new juvenile at school after his family had moved. At the same time, Bluestreak fitting right in and how proud Prowl had been of him.

It took Prowl a moment, lost in the memory of onlining for the first time in the Vector Sigma Chamber and his creators laughing and hugging him in joy, to realize Barricade was gone. Prowl, crouched on the ground as if restraining a suspect, dropped forward onto his hands and knees and stayed there, swaying, for a half a klik. Then he forced himself to stand. Jazz must have been further depleted, they would need his help again. They would certainly want to get out of this attic – Prowl wasn’t thrilled about the idea of spending more time there himself, and he hadn’t been imprisoned and starving in it.

Prowl made it to the doorway of the room Barricade had been trapped in and leaned heavily on the jamb. He never would be able to tell anyone what the room contained because all his attention was focused on Jazz, standing perfectly still and glowing. Prowl could see Jazz’s mech-form and behind and within that…

There was…

They were…

The light…

Prowl shut his optics off, ran a brief diagnostic and brought them back up. Jazz had gone from being both mech and – other, to looking like a normal mech again. They approached Prowl and caught hold of his arms, helping Prowl straighten up.

“You can’t – “ Prowl protested reflexively, and cut himself off. Jazz obviously could: their movements were no longer stiff, and they looked in better health than they had been at any other point.

“Sure can,” Jazz said cheerfully. “Good as new, now. Got a little bit of unexpected help, from downstairs as it were.”

“Primus,” Prowl muttered. What the hell. Magic was real and supernatural beings were real, so why not gods too?

“We-ell, maybe not quite _that_ high up,” Jazz admitted. “Could’ve been where the word came from, though. Kind of hard to tell with the big guy.”

“Where did Barricade go?”

“Away, that’s all I can tell you. We’ll do our best to heal Barricade — as much as he can be healed. Speaking of,” Jazz added. They put a hand on Prowl’s head, and warmth flowed down him, wounds healing and energy returning in its wake. “Better?”

“Much. Thank you.” Prowl didn’t even have a ghost of a question as to how Jazz had healed him. Given the circumstances, magical healing seemed perfectly rational. “What happens to you now?”

Jazz shrugged. “Gonna stay around for a bit. See what mortals are like now, maybe look up a few old friends.” He smiled at Prowl. “Make some new ones.”

“Starting in Praxus?” Prowl guessed.

“Read my mind.” Jazz grinned. “And here I thought you weren’t magic.”

**Author's Note:**

> Writing stream-of-consciousness is always interesting, like when your brain decides Bluestreak/Hound/Trailbreaker with a side of pet play is a thing, then randomly sics a demon on you.  
> \---  
> Based on the map I’m using, Praxus and the Cable Jungle are in the far north of Cybertron. I used the National Research Council of Canada’s [Sunset/Sunrise calculator](http://app.hia-iha.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/cgi-bin/sun-soleil.pl) to calculate the length of an early spring night (March 31, 2018) in Iqaluit. It gave the hours of illumination as 15.06 hours. 24 hours – 15.06 hours = 8.94 hours of night. I divided 8.94 by 24 and multiplied that by 100 to get 37.25%, or the percentage of the total day that is nighttime. On the Cybertronian time-scale I’m using, a mega-cycle (day) is 93 hours and a cycle (hour) is 1.25 hours. 37.25% of 93 is 34.64 and 34.64 / 1.25 gives a total nighttime of 27.7 cycles. I knocked a few hours off assuming they started out late and drove for a few hours to get 23 cycles till dawn.  
> 


End file.
